The Unseen Death
by DrHooves
Summary: When An addictive drug Takes over equestria by storm, The Doctor races against time to prevent an extraterrestrial side effect...


The Doctor and Ditzy landed in Fillydelphia in a haze of grey smoke. "Um, Doctor, Are we in the slums?" They indeed were. broken buildings were standing like tall and sad people, people at a funeral. in fact, so did the ponies walking the street, slum and sad. Ponies were smoking, doing business, moping, begging for alms, or hurrying quickly, as if they were escaping an devegorationg grasp of death. It reminded the Doctor of the time when he went to the slums of New Earth with Martha, and ended up saving humanity again.  
"Course were in the slums!" said the Doctor cheerfully. "The real city is in the slums. The emotions, the the equinity, the everything of everypony. Y'know, the rich neighborhoods have this veil, where you can't see the equinity of anypony, all hidden in the wealth and fame of everypony. Come on, let's get a Filly Cheesesteak." They walked to the nearest restaurant, at the edge of the slums. Walking into the restaurant, they smelled linoleum, and beef and cheese. The Doctor Muttered "Must...have...meat...haven't...had...meat." The Doctor and Ditzy ordered a filly cheesesteak. While they were eating, the Doctor noticed that the cook kept away from open flame. He went to the cashier: "Tell me, has your cook always kept away from open flame?"  
"No, but he has been taking a drug. Ever since taking that drug, he has been scared of open flame."  
"Is it a prescription drug?"  
"I wonder why..." When the shop closed, the Doctor and Ditzy tailed the stallion at a distance. "Doctor? We are going into the slums, more and more..."  
"I know, Ditzy. And most drugs are in the slums. Which is why we might find answers there..." They kept tailing the stallion, to a small booth under a fire escape. The Doctor pulled out a small bomb-like device, and it started beeping. he then took out a small recording device, and pressed the button. They heard the transcript from behind a corner. They heard: "Hey. You were followed?"  
"No. I wasn't. Heres 100 bits. I need as much rice as I can buy." And the dealer gave the stallion a large bag of something that looked like wood chips or rice.  
"Here you go."  
The stallion walked away from the stall. Then, the Doctor said "Alright. Ditzy, heres the plan. You need to get a sample of this "rice" and enquire what it is, and how it is inhaled." Ditzy slinked over to the stall, and asked "I'm sorry, but I'm a bit of a newbie at this. Could you tell me..."  
"Of course. You need to put it over a wood fire, and there you go. The wood smoke gives you the buzz. Here are some free chips." The Dealer gave Ditzy some 'rice'. "Who's your supplier?"  
"I...Don't know."  
"Gonna have to do better than that."  
"Listen, I don't know, someone in Ponyville. I just go to the post office and there it is."  
"I Believe you." She went back to the Doctor. "Doctor, I have it!"  
"Great, Ditzy! Let's get to the TARDIS!" They ran into the slum...  
The Doctor burst into the TARDIS doors. He put the "rice" in a test tube, and inserted it into the TARDIS console. "Let's see...that is interesting. It appears to be a lifeform of viral origin."  
"What does this mean?"  
"It is a sort of a germ, infecting inside the body. But I wonder why the natural defenses would be lax to such a thing? And why is it extraterrestrial in origin? I wonder what the side effects are? So many questions."  
"Well, we could go back to the dealer..."  
"Let's do that. I suspect he was lying." They walked back to the dealer. "Excuse me." The Doctor asked. "Can you please tell me where you get your drugs?"  
"UM, I already told your friend." The Doctor put his hooves to the man's head. "He was lying through his teeth. He knows his supplier right down to the brand of napkin he's using."  
"Then where is he?"  
"Manehattan." They hopped into the TARDIS, and the Doctor set the coordinates. "Doctor, what was that thing you did?"  
"That thing I did-it's a time lord trick. It's called telepathy. You see, the mind is like a house, and the inhabitant of the mind can open and close doors at leisure. And time lords can open the house so to speak. Hey, We've landed." They stepped out into a Manehattan that had not changed at all since their last visit, even though their last visit was in the 920s. "Now, our contact said it was right here..." They opened the Door, to a small office. "I'm the Doctor."  
"Wait...are you FDA?"  
"No. I'm the Doctor. The FDA has Doctors, But i'm THE Doctor. The definitive article, you might say."  
"Then what are you on about?"  
"I'm here about this drug you sell..."  
"Which one?"  
"This 'rice' you sell..."  
"Yeah, what about it?"  
"Where did you get it?"  
"Why should I tell you?"  
"Because I know the name and address of this place, and if you don't tell me where you found the Drug, I will make an inquiry to the cops. They will shut you down and lock you up in prison. Understand?"  
"Understood."  
"Now put down the gun."  
"What gun?"  
"The beretta your holding towards my peripheral artery that will fire should I move a muscle. With luck, you think you'll be able to do me in by making me bleed out. But you forgot something. I'm a 903 year old time lord, and i've still got 2 regenerations in here. Furthermore, I can grab the berretta out of your hand. I have a binary vascular system, with only two bloodstreams. Blood pumping twice as fast. And you couldn't fire the gun anyway, because I made your magazine fall out with the sonic." The dealer held the gun up where the Doctor and Ditzy could see it, and checked the magazine. "You're good, for a guy who needs to go to a shrink more than anyone i've met."  
"Damn straight I'm good."  
They stepped towards the man. "Outside, there will be a blue box. Get inside the box. Don't ask questions." They walked towards the TARDIS, and the Doctor pulled out his sonic, and sonic handcuffs, handcuffs made of an unbreakable material that could be only unlocked by a sonic screwdriver. "Now, one wrong move, and its handcuffs all the way back." said the Doctor. The sent into the TARDIS, and the crew's prisoner gaped. "WHAT? It's bigger on the inside! Blow me! Who the hell are you?"  
The Doctor ignored him, as he set the coordinates on the TARDIS console. "You're very smart to help us. I could have called the cops."  
"Don't worry."  
"Tell us about the site."  
"It was like some flying saucer, burning in the wreckage. We found it about 5 months ago. I saw the rice, and threw it in the fire. it gave off this thing that made it addictive-and here I am, a richer pony then when I first found it."  
"How much have you sold?"  
"Nearly 1 billion bits worth. All over equestria. The prime drug. I'm a billionaire."The TARDIS suddenly stopped. The Doctor stepped outside, and he was face to face with a facility. Why it was there, he didn't know, but he know it had guards that would not take kindly to his presence, even if he did save all of Equestria from the Daleks less than a month ago. "We'll have to get inside. Heres the plan: I'll sound the claxon engines of the TARDIS, and then, we'll use the distraction to slip inside."  
"Couldn't we just get the TARDIS in there?" He pulled some levers and pushed some buttons, and large sound escaped from the TARDIS. The Doctor and Ditzy ran out of the TARDIS, while a horde of guards streamed in. The Doctor ran inside the complex, running through the complex. then, he went inside the ship. He looked at the dealer "Get inside!"  
"NO! I'll stay at the door..." The Doctor shrugged. Going through the ship, seeing the bodies of crewmembers. Ditzy looked at the marks of the skeletons. "These crewmembers were murdered. By themselves. Why?"  
"It's the same parasite. Its a parasitic organism that directly attacks the frontal lobe in the cerebral cortex. Called the Ones Qui Acceperint Mens or The Ones Who Take the Mind, they are similar to the vashta nerada, but instead of eating their victims, they are taking the brain cells and using them as food, driving people to madness. And because our friend has given it to nearly every pony in equestria...then it must be in chaos! We need to get to the TARDIS!"  
"But Doctor, why was that man cowering in open flame?"  
"Thats because open flame is the weakness, because flame kills all parasites, If you have a man who came in contact with a bug, and he put hsi hand over open flame, the bug would burn."  
The ran out of the ship, to be surrounded by soldiers. "DO NOT MOVE."  
"You heard them, Ditzy. Don't." Then, He felt a drug course through his body, into his two hearts, and then-all went black.

When he woke up, he was in a cell, where Ditzy and another pony were sitting. "Well, As long as we are here, then we should introduce ourselves."  
"I'm Ditzy Doo, and this is the Doctor." The pony did not move. "Look into my eye, Doctor, and you'll know what I am. Or, should I say, What we are." The Doctor looked into the eye of the pony and saw not a pupil, but a corridor lighted up by purple lights. "The Teselecta. You crazy bastard, how did you end up here in equestria, and how did you manage to acquire an equine form? Furthermore, I thought your ship was dead."  
"We took a hardware update, Doctor, so to speak. Our old model was one of the oldest. Our new one enables us to take non-humanoid forms."  
The Doctor Checked his saddlebag. "Damn. No sonic."  
"I have a codebreaker."  
"Where are we?"  
"We are in the EERC. Or, To put it in another way, the Equestrian Extraterrestrial Research Center. It is a center to combat alien threats."  
"Glad to see them taking a stand. Then why are they locking people up?"  
"They are interested in researching us."  
"So that's why they're stealing my sonic. They're going to study it. Oh, I know the phrase all too well 'If it's alien, It's ours.' It's just another goddam Torchwood, only with a fancier NAME! Jesus, a drug infested by a parasitic alien is taking over equestria, and they lock up the stallion who can save them! And because of that, they've taken the TARDIS!"  
"Well, How do we get out?"  
"Take us in?"  
"Will Do." A huge light enveloped the Doctor, and he was sucked into the teselecta. He woke up in the cockpit, Ditzy next to him. "Welcome on board the teselecta."  
"Thanks. Now we are in discrepancy, we can plan how to get out of here. Get to that guard and strangle him, then assume his form." The teselecta strangled the guard. Just before the guard dies, he saw his doppelganger assume his form. The teselecta took the key cards, and proceeded. He then met with his superior. "Roberts! Just the man I wanted to see. Listen, I need you to lock up the time machine for the night." The Doctor took a look round on the Screen, and saw it was like torchwood, not the torchwood hub that he had visited a few months before, but the torchwood of london, of when the cybermen burst through the void from pete's world. The Doctor was happy, as the doppelganger was alone in the room that was to store the TARDIS and another screen. "What's this?" asked the Doctor. "It's a control center for all health and inoculation in equestria, by using nanogenes as the inoculators. How they got that I don't know, but we can't worry about that now. We have to get out of here." The teselecta stepped into the TARDIS, and expelled the Doctor and Ditzy. The Doctor flipped buttons, and typed into the typewrite, and pressed the button. They were going back to Ponyville. The Doctor, Ditzy, and the teselecta stepped out of the TARDIS, to find Ponyville like normal, but it was dotted by small fires, definitely centers of the drug. The weird thing was, the addicted ponies were exactly as the Doctor and Ditzy left them. The Drug hadn't addled their brains.. The Doctor opened a flint and steel, started a fire in the TARDIS fire pit, and put the rice on the fire. "Let me in!"  
"Why?"

"I need to know what the effects of the poison are. Get me inside, and kick in the respiratory function." The Doctor was sucked back in the Teselecta. The teselecta was absorbing the drug. Sparks began to fly. "Nanogenes! Get to the frontal lobe." Sparks flew and the radio and security cameras crackled, and then-silence. The nanogens had been beaten. "Get ready! they will attack the frontal lobe at any minute!" The door was busted in, and then, several floating creatures appeared. They were like a germ, but because size was relative, they were just as big as the Doctor and the crew of the teselecta. They decimated the crew, but the few surviving members held there all. suddenly, the bacteria started depleting. "SHOOT WHEN THEY APPEAR TO SPLIT! IT DECIMATES THEIR NUMBERS!" It was true: splitting apart meant that the germ stopped reproducing asexually. Finally, the last one was destroyed, the body lying on the floor. "Listen. Your kind are bring in taken by ponies, yet they are unaffected. Why?" He then heard a voice in the back of his mind: the germ was communicating telepathically. They are not affected. That is true, Time Lord. But they are not yet affected. When the clock strikes, so will we.  
"I know, I know, But when does it strike? When?"  
You'll know. You always do. And it fell, Dead. "Doctor?" asked Ditzy. "What happened?"  
"Ponykind is safe...for now. The infection is'nt slow, It's sudden. It's a time bomb, waiting to explode! Oh, it all fits! The bug is not expelled by the bodys defenses because it hasn't done anything but minimal changes! Get into the system as a dormant, nonthreatening organism, reproduce asexually into the bloodstream, and then feast of neurons! Oh, you are geniuses!"  
"When is it going to burst?"  
"I think the only way to find out is to get into the ship..."  
"And we have the means to do that."

In the teselecta, they set off for the grassy field-they couldn't risk using the TARDIS because of the security measures. They were picked up by a truck, and were carted away into the facility, where they were herded into rank and file. A colt stepped before the crowd. "Listen here, we have enough security that we can initiate going into the ship itself. Roberts, Mason, you lead."  
"Roberts..." said the Doctor. "He must mean us." The teselecta followed 'Mason' to the crash sight. They busted in, and The teselecta split from the group, to the main database and the captain's log. One of them reported that the crew in took some sort of drug, but they should be fine. then, several (20) weeks later, they reported aberrant behavior for the first time on the tapes. "Then we have our answer, the germ takes 5 months to become fully active and mutated enough to do harm."  
"Which would mean equestria's a powder keg, waiting to explode, and all of the ponies that have even sniffed the drug is going to be in some deep trouble. But if we find a way in time..."  
"Doctor?" asked the captain of the Teselecta, Captain Carter. "Why don't we just go back to the nanogene station? That way, the bodies of every single pony will be able to learn about the disease and fight it off."  
"OH, you're a Genius! But we don't want to break character. I have an idea. We burst out of here, you transform into a pegasus, fly off, and head towards the facility. Ready? GO! NOW!"  
The Teselecta burst out of the ship, transformed into a pegasus, and burst into the blue, guards angrily chasing it, brandishing their guns, or firing them for good measure. "Great!" said Ditzy. "But I wonder...If we came in unconscious, and we left via the TARDIS, then how do we know where it is now?"  
"I might be able to hack into their system, on the TARDIS..." The Doctor called the TARDIS on his sonic screwdriver, and the familiar blue home of the Doctor appeared on the bridge. The Doctor bonded in with a single leap, the console floor was vibrating when his hooves crashed into it. He tried accessing the EERC files through the TARDIS, and was partially successful.  
He exited the TARDIS. "I have good news and bad news. The good news is that we have found the location of the Center. The bad news is that I can't access the files of the center."  
"What of the center's location?"  
"Embedded into the rock that canterlot is situated on."  
"Let's go, then!" The TARDIS was piloted from the tellelectia to the rock face, and then, it tried to enter the facility. "DAMN! They've put a temporal barrier. I can't go through. Fortunately, there is a weak point, where I could get in." The Doctor walked out of the TARDIS, which was situated on a rooftop in Canterlot. The teselecta handed them earphones. "These are similar to human earphones, but they also have a small camera attached to them. I will be able to guide your every move." The Doctor and Ditzy walked into a door in the rock face, and disabled a guard. The door led to the balcony. From here, he saw the facility. He also saw a railing-that led straight to the nanogene department. He leape on the railing with amazing strength for a 900-year old. He crept along the railing, Ditzy following him. He heard Carter speak into his ear: "Alright, you need to use the sonic to get into the other door. From there, there will be an experimental transmat. There will be no guards, only security cameras." The doctor and ditzy stepped into the transmit, and the doctor set the coordinates to the nanogene room. FLASH. They entered the nanogene room. "Well, That was exciting. Usually, the humans (or ponies) screw up with technology like this. That is impressive."  
"We have more to worry about then pony efficiency with extraterrestrial technology. We have to get a move on."  
The Doctor stuck his sonic into the porthole. "When I sampled the "rice" I recorded the genetic material. Now, i can teach the nanogenes to destroy anything with that particular genetic material..." Suddenly, there was a bang on the door. "OPEN UP! WE KNOW YOU ARE IN THERE!"  
"Doctor, we Don't have much time!" the screen flashed with genetic code. "Hang on, Ditzy, 1 minute more..." The guards were banging on the Door. "FINISHED!"  
"Call the TARDIS! NOW!" At the same moment the doctor pulled the sonic out of the porthole, the guards blasted through the door, and ran towards the Doctor and Ditzy. The Tardis bgan materializing just as the first guard came to tackle the Doctor. That guard hit a hard surface, that turned out to be birch wood.

One week later, it was finished. The nanogenes had learned to find the gene of the Ones who take the mind, and destroy it. The Teselecta left once the Doctor's work was done. The Doctor, Tried for breaking into a facility, was cleared when he made it clear that he was trying to save the sanity of every single pony in Equestria. Princess Celestia banned the Drug, and the dealer, the source of it, was given 20 years in Stormcage prison for selling an extraterrestrial drug in a level 2 planet, courtesy of the Atraxi and the Shadow Proclamation.


End file.
